


2016 WEST drabbles

by calerine



Series: WEST drabbles [2]
Category: Johnny's WEST
Genre: Gen, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-06-04 14:13:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 17,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6661780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calerine/pseuds/calerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>written in 2016. </p><p>i wrote things some days last year. this is most of them. enjoy!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. [akito & junta] try the end of the night (the end of the line)

sometimes it’s nice to take the later  _ shinkansen _ back to osaka, stay longer in tokyo especially if junta’s here too. without the cameras he’s softer, more willing to lean against akito’s shoulder or let their fingers brush when he reaches across the counter, over akito’s bowl of ramen for sesame seeds. they hardly have time for just the two of them nowadays and akito’s far from complaining. he loves west, the mischief they get up to and how loud they grow when no one reminds them to shush. but they’d been b.a.d. for so long before sometimes akito misses when it’s just them here, in a ramen joint in shibuya near closing time. 

the lady behind the counter tells them “we’re closing soon” _ ,  _ and junta yawns mid-nod, hand over his mouth.

they stroll back to shibuya station, hands in jacket pockets and chins tucked into the collars of their coats to hide from the biting cold. this afternoon, they’d bumped into each other in a family mart near the nhk building, akito having second thoughts about his three onigiri and junta getting warm tea while the asadora theme was playing over the speakers again. 

“do you have 2000 yen?” akito asks at the recharge machines in the station, half a hand in his wallet. it’s quiet, the white lights on the smooth floor, monochrome office people bent-backed over their phones. he watches junta fumble for his wallet, slow with the two mugs of beer he had with dinner. 

“5000?” junta hands the note over and akito waits for the machine to spit out change before he slides his pasmo off the scanner. 

they take the train to tokyo station and then on the platform, waiting for their shinkansen, akito slips his arm through junta’s where his elbows stick out. their feet step close, and their bodies reach for each other, closer still. junta fishes his mouth out of his scarf just so akito hears him when he asks “tired?” like he isn’t, too.

but this is akito’s partner, his companion, his comrade, and some days he thinks junta probably knows him better than he knows himself. 

“tired,” he answers, closing his eyes against the rush of the _shinkansen_ screeching into the station. when he opens them, junta’s tapping him on his pocket to remind him about his ticket. then “better now that you’re here,” and akito knows junta’s felt the warmth of his heart when he readjusts them and leads akito through the doors and to their seats.


	2. [akito/kamiyama] hitched

They get married on a chilly autumn day, pulling their suit jackets tighter at the pulpit as the priest leads them. Akito grins at Kamiyama over the words that they’ve rehearsed for days from mp3 files in the car, recordings of their vows and the look on each other’s faces. Kamiyama could not have imagined this, this disbelief and joy, Akito’s smile-lined cheeks, his dark hair slicked back like Kamiyama likes it. 

The both of them were happy without a ceremony, all they’d been talking about after all were the logistics of their love; what if Kamiyama fell ill one day and the hospital deemed Akito a stranger. The title deed of their apartment, their wills, endless worst case scenarios that struck Kamiyama on the train, on the way to work. Every news disaster exacerbated this rational fear, turned it irrational and overwhelming. But then their families had insisted, for tradition’s sake even though there was nothing traditional about them. 

So here they are, in a church on a cloudless Saturday afternoon. There are flowers, lace and Kamiyama’s mother wearing a shaky smile.

“I promise to share everything, even my food, _especially_ my food,” Akito starts, and Kamiyama already sees the fat tears gathering on his eyelids. This morning, getting ready at the tuxedo rental place, Akito had ducked his head, already embarrassed, already admitting _I’ll try not to cry,_ _but I feel like I’m about to cry already_. His cheeks had been pink then, and he’d been so nearly on the verge of tears that Kamiyama had pulled him close just to feel the warmth of his body through their clothes. _He’s going to cry buckets,_ Kotaki had called out gleefully from the other end of the room, and he had been just far enough to escape a swat of Akito’s hand. 

When they kiss, Akito’s niece yells out, scandalised from the front row and Kamiyama glances over to see her peeking at them through the gaps between her fingers. 

“How is she so cute,” he says just before he feels Akito’s lips on his, his hand clasped gently around Kamiyama’s hip. Then, Akito’s giggling into his lips, trying to stop but failing completely. When they part, he apologises, brushing away tears with the back of his hand.

“Sorry, sorry, could we redo that?” He asks wide-eyed, looking around the hall as if they were filming and he just messed up a line. Shige and Hamada are laughing so hard they’ve disappeared behind a pew, and Kamiyama finds only a tuft of brown hair bopping up and down in hysteria. 

“Yes, let’s -” Kamiyama replies, turning to the priest for confirmation. 

This time when they meet, blush to blush, he’s the one on the brink of laughter, full of happiness bubbling over.


	3. [akito/kotaki] A 'How Not To' Guide To Waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place towards the end of Gotouchimon.
> 
> Also the photoshoot of Kami-chan and Akito exists, it's super gay.

Akito kissed basically everyone else before he got to Kotaki.

Honestly, Kotaki would be lying if he said he hadn’t been waiting since Akito pulled a fast one on Junta, then Hamada on Shokura no less. (Kotaki managed to squeeze one in on the corner of Akito’s lips, but it’s so fast that it doesn’t count.) The older two done and dusted, the only natural progression was a slow move down the ranks, but Kotaki also knew Akito liked to catch them off guard, liked to butter them up first then move in for the kill.

So then there was Shige in the couch in their green room after they hadn’t met for a few days. Shige got like this frequently; sticky with affection and over-clingy. First, he stuck his cold hands under Akito’s shirt, then putting his arms around Akito’s shoulders, nuzzled behind his ear until Akito put down his phone and kissed Shige, pressing his shoulders into the back cushions and mussing up his hairstyle in the process. Kotaki knew it was petty to feel jealous about this, so he just seethed from across the room until Hamada let him put his head in his lap and called him pet names with his fingers in Kotaki’s hair.

It’s Kamiyama afterwards, kind of. Akito pulls him close during a photoshoot and the photographer doesn’t even blink. The spread eventuates with mutual cheek kisses. Kotaki spends ten entire minutes at the magazine rack of a Family Mart pretending to flip through that issue of Myojo when in actual fact all he wanted to do was stare at  _ those _ pictures for all eternity.

There was only Ryusei left at that point, and Kotaki was  _ not _ going to be the last person in WEST that Akito kissed.

“Akito,” he demands in the van. They’re somewhere in Shimizu, still miles away from Chiba and so far from Osaka. Outside the windows, the highway stretches before them endlessly, and in the distance the mountains rise up like shadows of giants marching along the landscape. Junta’s gone to the washroom, and the cameraman’s just finishing up in the restaurant. But Kotaki’s still trying to shake off the furtivity when he says, “it’s time you kiss me. It’s been far too long.”

Akito looks up from his phone, blinking. In the darkness, the countryside shadows cloud his face. Kotaki’s belly is warm with soup; it lends him some courage.

“Kiss me,” he says again. “It’s unfair that you’ve kissed everyone else but me.” He reaches into Akito’s space, across the slick leather car seats and places his hand on Akito’s knee, knuckles on that knobbly bit of bone. And by the dim light of the car park street lamp, he sees that Akito’s started to grin.

“What do you mean ‘too long’? You been waiting?” and Kotaki makes a sound of frustration. The moment hangs over them, but there’s no weight to it, no pressure when they’re both satisfied from picking play-fights over food with their chopsticks. Akito hums, and Kotaki finds he can wait no longer.

“If you’re not going to do it, I’m going to do it.” He warns, but it falls flat. “Is this how it works,” as he surges  _ there _ , fingers clasping the soft down of Akito’s jacket to tug him close. He comes easily, Kotaki realises. Perhaps he’d been waiting too, but there is no space between them for thinking because Akito tastes like sharp sake in sweet broth, shiitake mushrooms and garlic. Each breath he exhales, Kotaki feels as gentle warmth spreading across his cheek. Akito kisses slow, fingers stroking Kotaki’s jaw, as if he’s got all the time in the world, like they’re about to fall asleep in a single hotel bed with the covers pulled up to their chins. He makes sounds too, tiny absentminded noises that slip out between his searching lips, into Kotaki’s when he tries a new angle and finds that it makes Kotaki’s fingers clutch at his clothes. So Kotaki slides his hands over Akito’s shirt, under Akito’s jacket and lets him lead.

“Happy now?” Akito asks when Junta knocks on the window to let them know he’s coming in now. That  _ prude. _

“Happy,” Kotaki settles back in his seat, arms crossed. He looks over at the other end of the backseat, glee all over his face. He doesn’t even retaliate when Akito pokes his hip with his toes.v


	4. [junta/shige] Don't Look Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by one of the salaryman!Shige pictures from the WEST calendar, where he's drinking from a cup on a bench and there's a half-empty cup next to him and Cheryl yelled at me to make it Junta's.

It should count as their first date, or perhaps not - Shige hasn’t made up his mind yet. They’ve been dancing around each other for far too long, Junta and him, their sly advances always one step forward and two back; all the colour-coded post-it notes like messages Shige has to decipher during his lunch break while making sure Kotaki from the next cubicle doesn’t catch on again. 

Shige’s not the sort of person who will pretend he doesn’t when he does, especially when it comes to Nakama Junta from Upper Management. He doesn’t know when it started or how they got here either, just remembers months of accidentally making eye contact during important meetings and being called on for demonstrations when all he wanted to do was slide onto the carpet and roll around. 

And now he’s stuck with a whole lot of feelings he’s not sure what to do with. 

Junta’s easy to read though. Maybe Shige started from there. Maybe he likes that Junta says what he means, and even when he doesn’t, his face betrays his annoyance when Shige gets overenthusiastic. (It didn’t take long for Junta start to sending Shige private memos on the company portal to tell him to shut up anyway. Let it never be said that Shige didn’t know how to keep a man interested.) 

Or maybe it was a billion other things, or one of them, or a combination of sorts - Shige’s still not quite sure, just like he’s not sure if this is their first date. It could very well be, but it could also be a superior-subordinate after-work drinking thing. What would someone like Junta even count as a first date? Wine and roses? Possibly. Possibly a 12-carat gold watch too. Shige changed his mind; Junta was hard to read. 

“Are we going somewhere else?” He asks after an entire evening of too much thinking, still testing the ice. They’re standing outside the izakaya that Junta picked, warm from the inside with drink and if Shige’s not super careful, he might just step forward and pull Junta into his arms. 

“I thought it might be nice to have something sweet before we head off,” Junta replies. The street is loud with people singing off-key, the clinking of glasses and muffled cheers. Shige’s occupied by the bow of Junta’s lips, as he glances at his watch and wonders aloud if his favourite bubble tea place is still open at this hour. 

He lets Junta lead, aimless ambling conversation echoing their path back to the station. The night is nearly sweltering. Shige’s shirt sticks to his back, his collar to his neck. His top button is undone and his jacket hangs crumpled over his arm, taken off after the aircon in the izakaya breathed its last and promptly died. He knows he looks unkempt, unfit for the office right now but the heat sticks to his skin, slipping its gnarled fingers through his inhibitions. 

They manage to catch the store before it closes. Relief carves into Junta’s face, and it leaves Shige’s wondering yet again.

“Aren’t you hot?” Shige asks after they find an empty bench on the veranda. Junta’s still got his jacket on, still impeccably unwrinkled. Meanwhile Shige gives in to the urge to roll up his sleeves until they catch on the corners of his elbows. Before them, the backstreets of Tenjinbashi-suji are alight, spread out in the glare of so many colours Shige has to remember to blink. He presses his drink to his neck. The condensation from the smooth plastic collects in droplets that roll down his skin. He catches Junta staring.

“Wait,” he says finally, giving in to this, too. “Is this a date?” 

Junta gapes, looking more taken aback that Shige expected. He’s staring straight ahead when he tries gingerly, “maybe? Wait, I thought you knew, I was going to kiss you!” A flush is working its way up his face. It’s decidedly not from the heat, Shige would know; his skin is hot with an identical one.

“I - you should have said! I thought we were just out drinking!” Shige’s laughing helplessly, biting the end of his straw until it’s deformed and unrecognisable against his tongue. He’s thinking about it now, a kiss, what it would be like to kiss Junta specifically - the sharp arch of his lips, their fullness. Shige swallows. His fingertips press sharp points into the plastic cup.

“How would I know you didn’t get it? Ugh, forget it, this was my fault.” Junta’s embarrassed now, gulping huge mouthfuls until he’s just sucking at air and ice, making desperate noises, his straw scraping the bottom of the cup. 

Shige leans forward on his elbows, earnest and eager to make up for this. “Sorry, sorry, kiss me kiss me, ignore what I said,” and he leans in first, close enough for Junta to reach but far enough for him to say later that he made the first move. Shige catches a flash of uncertainty first, then Junta’s fingertips are touching his arm, tentatively before they curl around.

Like everything else in this hazy, balmy night, Shige doesn’t know what to expect so he doesn’t. These are Junta’s hands, this is the heat of his body drawing near, his nose bumping Shige’s when he shuffles across the bench. When their lips finally touch, Shige tastes peach syrup and a tenderness he didn’t know was there. 

//

Junta escapes immediately after, citing the entire cup of bubble tea as the cause of his full bladder. But Shige knows better; he’s seen Junta in the toilet in the office after major meetings after all, hands pressed against his cheeks while he stared at his reflection. The one time Shige had tried to talk to him then, his voice had trembled around  _ I’m fine. _

And, he’s thinking about Junta doing that now, shaken from touching him, from being so near, and his face hurts from his grin because his heart feels the same. 


	5. [akito & junta] think of this instead

“Turn off the lights,” Akito says from the bed, his face half-pressed into his pillows and his voice dragging along the dirty hotel carpet. Junta runs his fingers through his wet hair, and finger on the switch, loses a moment to Akito, his body buried under the duvet, his arms thrown out in the huge expanse of the bed. He’s never thought of it this way but, he  _ misses  _ him. The toothy, incorrigible teenager he was, the way he drove Junta insane with how much he spoke, with how relaxed he was about everything. 

“Partner.” A breath from the bed, an exhale that rides a hoarse voice into the bottom of Junta’s chest. Akito’s eyes are still closed when he pats the space beside him, Junta should have known he would know. It’s been more than a decade after all. He pushes the switch, plunges the room into darkness and on the way back, bypasses his bed and crawls into Akito’s instead.

“What a luxury, two beds,” he murmurs, only half-joking. Akito reaches for him, hands wrapping around his bare skin and pulling the duvet over his shoulders.

“We’re stars now. Dome tours soon.” Then, “hug me,” and even though Akito’s broad-shouldered now, filled out his skinny arms, Junta’s grown up too. 

So he does. 


	6. [akito/hamada/shige] smut

By the time Hamada pushes into Shige, he’s pretty sure he’s been begging for an hour  _ at least.  _ But it’s hard to complain, when Akito’s cock is heavy on his tongue. Then Hamada snaps his hips without warning and Shige’s gasping for breath. 

“You’re so tight,” Hamada says, hands wrapping around Shige’s hips and Shige can only imagine how they must look, so broad over his bones. He moans around Akito, every thrust from Hamada pushing him deeper down Shige’s throat until Shige is dizzy with the musk of his precum. Hamada is so big, feeling the stretch is an entirely different experience from watching him fuck Akito just now, bent double over his couch with their trousers barely undone. Shige moans, struggling to get a hand around his own cock.

His arms shake. Akito’s fingers tighten in his hair, then loosen. 

“I wonder if Subaru-kun imagines this when he teases you about your teeth. Your mouth slack around his cock, oh god you look so fucking good like this,” and Shige closes his eyes on a shudder, basking in the praise, in the sensation of Akito’s thumb tracing around his swollen lips firmly. It’s not quite pain but it’s almost there. 


	7. [akito & junta & hamada]

akito is most definitely drunk, and hamada feels like he could be even though he’s not had even a drop. 

“we’re good,” junta tells the waitress when she comes by again. akito nudges hamada with his elbow, and when hamada turns to look, he attempts a sloppy, barely acceptable wink then they’re cackling again. “hama-chan, at this rate you’re not going to be able to drive.”

“i’ll drive then,” akito swings an arm around junta, falling face first into his shoulder instead. under the table, hamada finds junta’s warm toes and over their empty plates, his equally fond smile. 


	8. [akito & junta & hamada]

junta sends letters to the prince for years before akito realises. 

“who’s that for?” he’ll ask on mornings after sparring with his brother to find junta at his desk, penning poetry for a glimpse of a man.

“no one,” he’ll reply. 

when akito realises, it’s too late. 

_ i always knew, but i never  _ knew _ ,  _ he writes in yet another letter with junta’s name and an address he can only guess at.  _ please come home, your grandfather is worried. i miss you the most. _

in wan candlelight, hamada bows his head in apology, and junta finds that he should have been writing to two people all along. 


	9. [akito/junta] Aftermath

akito finds junta in the sauce aisle of the supermarket on monday. he’s not angry anymore, just deflated, exhausted a week of straddling two ends of love and heartbreak. 

“oh,” junta says when he realises. a glance, and he’s darting his eyes away from akito’s eye bags, his three-day old sweatpants, guilt clouding his face. akito knows him enough from those two years to understand how to be kind. 

“mum wanted me to pick up mayonnaise for dinner,” and he leaves out the gentle pressure of her hand on his hip, and her fingers squeezing when she murmured  _ junta-kun’s a good kid, but you’re my son and i just wanted to make sure you’re okay  _ in the curtained darkness of his room. 

the white lights of the store is starting to make akito’s head pound. 

“ah,” junta nods, but akito’s thankful when he doesn’t quite meet his eyes - who knows what akito might have done? - as he fumbles with his keyring (the stupid porcelain frog that akito got him from matsumoto dangles still) and produces akito’s apartment key. “here. i think it’ll be good for us.” 

akito barely manages a  _ thanks, i think so too _ past all the other things he’s been regretting not saying in the heat of his anger. in the shadows of his drawn curtains, they seemed promising, spiteful in all the right ways but now like this, pale face to pale face, akito feels raw, stretched out like the lost possessions of the deceased on a steel gurney. 

“say hi to your parents for me.” it’s out before akito realises, too little time passed to have corrected such a reflex. 

junta blinks, careful. then he grins as if akito’s offered him a truce. “i will,” and it dawns on akito that perhaps it will never go away, that he might be thirty, forty, fifty and still know twenty-five year old nakama junta better than he knows himself. 


	10. [kamiyama/hamada] fissure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from Cheryl: "hama/kami break up with a dash of prideful jealousy".
> 
> Oops?

it’s not like hamada didn’t know what kamiyama had meant when he said  _ if you love him so much, maybe you should fuck him instead.  _

it’s not that it doesn’t hit kamiyama. two streets down the block from their apartment, in the middle of the fucking road, struck dumb with the knowledge that perhaps he could never walk back again, that even if he did, even if he made it back the very next moment, nothing would be the same again. 

on the other end of the traffic crossing, he paces two steps forward, then three back, their history and the  _ reality _ of this making tendrils around his ankles. it’s a different matter knowing that choice and emotion are not necessarily bedmates, then  _ seeing _ the resolute line of hamada’s jaw when he bit out  _ you’d like that, wouldn’t you?  _

they didn’t fight much, but when they do -

five floors above ground, hamada stops jabbing at the elevator button. 

“were you heading down?” a neighbour asks when the doors open, and hamada just stares blankly back. 

“oh, oh, no,” he says, gesturing vaguely in the direction of his door. “i just - forgot something.”

 


	11. [junta/shige]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Office AU. Happens in the same verse as [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6661780/chapters/15473602) and [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6661780/chapters/15473857).

By the time they get to Junta's apartment, it's past midnight and Shige feels lightheaded with his exhaustion. Beside him, Junta wobbles on his feet as he tries to toe off his shoes without hands and ends up dropping his briefcase instead, the heavy thump on the _genkan_ and the wisp of a sigh.

The day feels like it'd gone on for far too long, overstayed its welcome while Shige rushed from one meeting to the next, spending the moments in between wolfing down a banana at his cubicle and drinking the watered down coffee someone always left brewing in the break room. He'd seen Junta in the corridors, looking no less frazzled as the hours dragged on. Once they ended up in the same meeting, and the moment Junta walked in, Shige's body had allowed him reprieve as if it too knew, he could relax if Junta was there to have his back.

Now they're in Junta's tiny bathroom, bare feet touching bare feet as Shige flosses and Junta rests his face against his back, his hands reaching to clutch at Shige's hips.

"Thank you for your hard work," Junta murmurs, sounding so very near sleep. On the train back, he had nodded off against Shige's shoulder and woke up a stop later with panic in his eyes, and Shige had had just enough energy left to cackle quietly at him.

"You're not on the clock anymore," Shige reminds him, and feels it when Junta groans affirmatively like a zombie.


	12. [junta/shige] All Tied Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Office AU. Same verse as [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6661780/chapters/15473602).

“You’re wearing my tie,” Junta looks up from his breakfast when Shige takes a seat at his coffee table. He gapes for a moment before Shige reaches over to rehinge his jaw. For a moment, he fidgets a little in his impeccably ironed suit, fills his cup with coffee, all the while watching for Junta’s reaction.   


Then, giving up, “So, do you like it or…?” 

“Ye - uhm.  _ Yeah, _ ” A grin spreads across Junta’s face. When he runs his eyes down Shige’s body, his thorough gaze lingering on the vicinity of his neck, watching for the dip of his Adam’s apple, Shige resists the urge to shiver. Instead, he lets out a breathless exhale, eyes slipping shut for a moment. By the time he opens them again, Junta’s leaning across the table, hand wrapped around a glass corner, and telling him in a low murmur just  _ how much  _ he likes it.

*

Shige didn’t think  _ this many  _ people kept track of Junta’s ties. 

First it’s Kotaki who leans across their cubicle separator when they finally get to the office. (They were right on time instead of early, like Junta preferred. It wasn’t Shige’s fault this time. After all, Junta had been the one who let the coffee go cold while he swallowed around Shige on the tatami of his living room floor.)

Kotaki grins his shit-eating grin and Shige returns one of his own. 

“Isn’t that Nakama-san’s tie?” He asks, narrowing his eyes and Shige is suddenly caught out. But then, he’s always prided himself in being the smoothest dude around so he just nods and runs his fingers along the silk. 

“It suits me better than him, right?” He says, tugging it out of its pin and admiring the dark maroon. Kotaki’s computer rings with a new email, and he’s just sliding back to his side with a knowing smile and a drawn out  _ uh-huuuuh  _ that promises Shige he’s never going to hear the last of it. 

Then it’s Ryusei in the break room during a coffee break. By then Shige’s forgotten about the tie, too occupied with submitting a report before noon, and the list of specifications his direct superior had emailed him just half an hour ago. He’s aching for some caffeine and perhaps one of the muesli bars he nicked from Junta’s kitchen counter this morning. (Junta noticed once, Shige was sure, but he never really mentioned it, just asked Shige which flavour he liked and bought more of it.) 

It takes Ryusei at least a minute to notice though, and to be honest, Shige’s surprised he’s even present mentally when all he’s doing is leaning against the counter, blowing on the surface of his coffee. One never knows with Ryusei. 

“That’s not - it’s not your tie is it?” Ryusei considers Shige for a moment, and Akito from HR is suddenly interested in the conversation. If they had a rank for gossips in the office, Akito would be number 2, just under Kotaki who remained unbeatable in his sheer shamelessness. 

Shige feels embarrassed all of a sudden, under the scrutiny of two pairs of eyes. He lets out a laugh that’s too high and touches the back of his neck with a badly veiled sense of helplessness. The coffee machine’s still working away, taking too long as usual.

“It’s… it’s not? Aah, it’s not,” and he’s just grappling for words at this point. Akito bursts into laughter, kicking his legs up.

“We won’t tell anyone,” Ryusei promises in a drawl and with a smile that grows from the side of his lips. He retreats to Akito’s table, his hands braced around his mug, glee practically palpable. 

And honestly, Shige’s about to say something really really smart when the coffee machine suddenly dings the same time Junta appears at the door. 

“Oh, Shigeoka-san. I would like to see you in my office, please,” Junta’s got a pile of manila folders in his arms, and he looks so good in his pinstriped suit Shige feels a little weak in his knees. 

He clears his throat Very Seriously, grateful for the escape. “I’ll come right away,” and when Shige glances back, Akito and Ryusei are miming something very office inappropriate indeed.

(It turns out the tie Shige’d picked had a NJ monogrammed on the end, which Junta should have really picked up on. They end up taking longer than a coffee break in Junta’s office. By the end of the day, Shige’s never been so glad for sound-proofed walls and opaque glass.)

 

**Addendum** :

Junta drags Shige in with a hand clutched around his tie and it’s the most cliched thing that’s ever happened. But suddenly Shige’s achingly hard against Junta’s hips. 

“I take it you really like it then,” Shige teases and Junta just groans against his lips, his exhales hot and hurried against Shige’s skin. His suit already feels like too much, like it’s three thousand layers on a summer’s day and Shige wants to peel them all off already, peel Junta’s off too so he can get his hands on his shoulders, his chest, his cock. 

“I’m going to make you come in ten minutes or we’re going to be late,” Junta pushes Shige back against the floor and Shige goes willingly, working a hand in between them to touch the tent in Junta’s trousers, then his own. 

“This is so romantic, Junta-kun, seriously,” but suddenly Junta’s fingers are tracing the shape of his dick through his briefs and Shige’s lost for words. 


	13. [hamada/shige] First Times

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was really into clothes-stealing for a few days (this was all Cheryl's fault) and so there's a whole bunch of WEST fic involving that.

The both of them turn up to an early call-time with Shige half-asleep in Hamada’s jersey. His hair is mussed up from his nap in the van, all flat on the back despite the time he spent in the bathroom this morning trying to tame it. 

Hamada hadn’t noticed it at all, even as they stood waiting for the company van in the lobby of his apartment building instead of outside in the light drizzle, then slumped against each other in the muted shadows of tinted glass. Halfway to the studio, Shige had fallen asleep against his shoulder, at a traffic light that had taken too long to turn while Hamada counted the strokes of some kanji on an awning of a shop and reached thirty-six. 

The day was dim, muted colours turn into shades of grey, the skyscrapers of Umeda hiding narrow streets and people huddled close together under clear vinyl umbrellas as they hurried down wet pavement. And Hamada timed the world to the ins and outs of Shige’s breathing against him, his face unguarded and slack in slumber. He thought of yesterday night, stumbling back to his apartment together, giddy with delight. He hadn’t drunk at all, but Shige’s giggles had gotten to his head, made him list to the side as they stood waiting for the elevator and he’d been so intoxicated then, with all the million ways real life Shige was infinitely better than the Shige he’d made up during the week. Hamada had never been so happy to be wrong, especially if it was in this way. The helpless sounds Shige made when Hamada sucked a bruise into the strong tendons in his neck were a billion times better than anything he could ever have thought of. Then the laughter Shige had tucked into the collar under Hamada’s coat, as he pulled  on one side so he could stick his face against Hamada’s throat, his hand clinging to Hamada’s body by the material of his shirt. And when Shige laughed into those undone buttons, into the slope of his shoulders and the tender dip of his collarbones, Hamada’s spine had gone alight with his joy. 

They pull into parking lot of the studio a little over fifteen minutes later, after Shige’s drifted his reluctant way to awakeness. The gravel grinds wetly under the van’s wheels, rainwater splashing when their driver brakes. It is only when they’re getting out that Hamada notices how familiar Shige’s jersey looks and feels too, when he touches the soft lining of it wonderingly. 

He squints a little even though the skies are overcast. It doesn’t help at all.  _ You weren’t wearing that yesterday _ , swings on the bow of his lips like a temptation. But he knows how bashful Shige gets when Hamada points out all the silly little romantic things he likes to do, that  _ he loves _ but Shige thinks is too uncool to befit his idol image. So he bites his tongue instead, and later when Shige scoots over on the couch in the green room, Hamada will reach over to rub his thumb on the worn cotton elastic. It will make Shige offer him a questioning sound, preoccupied with some joke Kotaki’s making. 

But Hamada will shrug, wrap his arm around Shige’s shoulders anyway, and pretend it’s the cold that’s drawing him close, not this look on Shige; the morning after, broad-shouldered and bleary-eyed in Hamada’s clothes. 

*

The morning after, Shige wakes up first, woken by the cold breeze coming in through the open windows. It’s still dark outside, and Shige naked and sticky under the covers, rolls towards Hamada’s body heat out of pure instinct, allowing himself a few moments of peace before he crawls out of bed. 

It’s strange, how the night before comes to him in slivers of sensation, between yawns and rummaging through Hamada’s closet for something warmer. He recalls Hamada’s hands on his skin, flashes of heat and affection, Shige’s cold nose against Hamada’s neck, smelling aftershave and the remnants of sweat amid the painful stretch. Shige stretches now, shakes his legs out. It’s almost like he slept weird; he’s going to be feeling that the entire day. 

Not much changes, really. It still takes Hamada forever to wake up, and by the time he does, Shige’s curled in front of the morning news in an old pair of his sweatpants and a sweater, freshly shaved and cradling a mug of hot tea. Hamada’s weight on the lumpy couch makes Shige bounce a little, but he still scoots close automatically, giving him one of his sickly sweet smiles and lets him steal some tea. 

“They played our next single on ZIP this morning,” Shige says in greeting and Hamada makes a surprised sound, as if to say  _ already! _ He’s barely awake, still naked and Shige imagines he’d woken up to an empty bed and just followed the sound of the tv out to the living room. At least he got the heater on, or he wouldn’t want to be responsible for an out of commission Hamada Takahiro. 

Their call-time is early today, but it takes them both a little while to get moving. Hamada’s more clingy than usual, insisting on brushing his teeth while Shige pees, and then propping his head on Shige’s shoulder to watch while he does his hair. 

“I’m just standing here,” he says in the way of an explanation when Shige smiles at his reflection, much too fast for that not to have been prepared. 

The idea of it makes Shige laugh at them in the mirror, eye bags stark in the orange light of the bathroom. “I didn’t say anything!”

Hamada freezes, caught out. It’s cute, he’s cute. Shige’s heart feels near to bursting with this fondness for him, his new fringe, the height of his body trying to draw nearer than it logistically can, and perhaps he’s been staring at them for too long because Hamada makes a questioning noise. 

“I was just thinking, I might keep you anyway,” he answers, and turns to kiss Hamada’s cheek when he blushes. 

 


	14. [shige & kamiyama] Chance It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steampunk bbs. Inspired by the Kamishige page on Myojo May 2016 issue where fans voted for the classic and rare WEST pairings.

Shige expected a scolding when Kamiyama got back. What he didn’t count on was just how livid Kamiyama would get when he saw Shige in his favourite bomber jacket, as he poked at the crumbling coal under the steaming pot that contained their dinner. 

“I  _ told _ you not to touch my clothes,” Kamiyama starts, his voice echoing in the empty steel structures of them home. Shige turns around to find him arms akimbo, his shadow stretching out long behind him. By firelight, his anger is amplified. His pants leg is torn, and beneath the ragged material, Shige catches a flash of red but then Kamiyama is stalking over and then his frustration becomes palpable. 

“Long day at the office?” Shige asks, trying for a joke but it doesn’t get anywhere near. He watches Kamiyama, his body all controlled movement and restraint as he sits heavily across from him, sullen and silent. Shige knows this Kamiyama, remembers when they were eight and Kamiyama gave Shige a dressing down for shooting a rat that was  _ his.  _ He’d grown out of it, kind of, not much. 

“I already share so much with you, can’t you leave some things  _ alone? _ ” Kamiyama’s near yelling now, and Shige’s face burns.

For a long moment, there is only the crackle of the fire and Kamiyama’s jacket is feeling more and more uncomfortable when just a second ago, it had felt like home. 

_ Forget it, _ he’s tempted to say. He imagines himself taking off the jacket and apologising - no. Shige would not. He could ladle dinner instead, out into the special bowls that Kamiyama is so fond of, that Shige had made by welding scrap metal together. (Kamiyama had taken a look at their stitches, where the fire had made them molten and soft enough to shape into one piece.  _ Just like us _ , he’d said and bumped their shoulders together.) Warm food and beer, Kamiyama would understand.

But by the time Shige lifts his eyes from his shame, Kamiyama’s gone. 

Shige eats alone, tasting nothing of the pork and vegetables he’d spent the last of their copper to buy. 

// 

The alarm wakes Shige from deep slumber.

He is alert in an instant, grappling for the pistol under his futon, and finds Kamiyama’s futon still rolled up neatly in the corner where he left it the day before. His weapons are gone; his  _ katana _ , bow and quiver full of glinting arrows. On second thought, he takes his  _ shuriken _ and throwing daggers too, just to be safe.

The moon is huge, barely hanging on to the sky tonight. Shige cuts through the marketplace, traversing the city by its shadow. Family crests hang in front of houses, cloth swinging in the faint breeze, their power lost by moonlight. The quietness moves, slithers out from the crevices and finding purchase in the crumbling walls. Some of them ask Shige for an alm or two, press grimy, curious fingers against the bright copper of his pistol hanging from his hip, with questions about where he’s heading. The others smile at him, and he finds darkness in the sockets of their eyes. They hiss, forked tongues rattling in nothing-throats. Shige hisses back, arching his shoulders so the night makes him bigger than he really is.

He does not stop.

The signal leads him to just outside the city gates, a hollow shell of what used to be a government building, perhaps. Shige cannot tell, but if Kamiyama were here, he’d know. His palms are slippery with fear. If Kamiyama were here - 

He’s still wearing his jacket, and when the wind blows just right, he catches a whiff of Kamiyama, nail polish remover and blood.

Shige finds him at the ground level. He takes a moment to survey the hall, check for exits, its faded carpets that were lush once, the candles burning black in the candle holders and the chandeliers. There are oak tables, shining like the day they were made and it gives Shige pause. He has not seen fresh wood for years, since he had that job in Kyoto that gone south way too fast. There are banisters, still standing, not taken apart for weapons or equipment. This kind of power, and Kamiyama is right in the heart of it all, desperation making him sloppy already. Shige’s hands start to shake.

He’s been at it for a while now. There is a substantial amount of bodies scattered around him, their blood darkening the faint red of the carpet, and still Kamiyama’s severely outnumbered. So Shige takes aim and throws. 

The dagger catches a man in his chest, cuts through to the other side, and the momentum pins him to the ground. In a split second, Kamiyama traces the trajectory of the weapon and finds Shige’s eyes at the end of it. Shige waves, grinning then cutting the man Kamiyama is fighting on his cheek with a  _ shuriken _ , distracting him for a moment. Kamiyama swings and slices his head cleanly off. 

Kamiyama’s slowing now, Shige can tell. His movements are not as sharp, nor as accurate anymore. His quiver is empty, and he’s favouring his left side, taking too long to turn when he needs to. In this business, they cannot afford to slow down even a second. One second is often a second too long. 

So Shige leaps from the shadows, tugging his knife out from that man’s back as he goes. 

“You’re getting old,” he comments, just to get the rise out of Kamiyama as he trades blows with another man before lunging for his carotid. The body barely makes a sound going down. 

Kamiyama rolls his eyes and says nothing at all.

//

“See, it’s a good thing I safekept this for you, wasn’t it?” Shige crows when they’re back within city-limits. Kamiyama scoffs, then drags the back of his hand across his lips. It comes away sticky and crimson.

“Your stupid broad shoulders better not have fucking stretched it out or I swear to god, Daiki.” He swears, even though he’s the one leaning heavily on Shige, his breath coming out in shallow gasps that Shige’s just that bit worried about. “Fuck, you’ve got blood on it, it’s  _ never _ going to come out.”

“And you’re bleeding all over it,” Shige manages a straight face for the grand total of ten seconds before he’s sniggering softly. Kamiyama makes as if to hit him, but then he’s letting out a hurt sound and stiffening instead. “We’re almost there,” Shige murmurs, tightening his grip around Kamiyama’s ribs. Like this he can feel Kamiyama’s heartbeat, steady and faint under his palm, the terrifying vulnerability of it. 

“We’re almost home,” Shige says again, for his own benefit this time. 

“I’ll have to find some way to shrink it now,” Kamiyama grumbles, but he’s intertwining their fingers together.

The night stays away this time, leaves them to their own devices and keeps deceptively still. 


	15. [akito & kotaki]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unrequited feelings.

They go out for dinner after filming even Akito doesn’t usually do this, but Kotaki had used his knowledge of all his weak points. An arm around his shoulders, a plea and a whine and suddenly, Akito had been persuaded,  _ reluctant  _ to be fair -  _ just dinner, okay? -  _ but persuaded all the same. 

At the counter of an izakaya in Kotaki’s neighbourhood, he spends the entire evening nursing a single orange juice as Akito drinks himself slowly into oblivion.

“And you know,” Akito is complaining. “The thing about free upsizes is, you gotta take them don’t you? I mean -” hiccup “- they’re  _ free upsizes _ , more  _ noodles!  _ For nothing!”

As the barlights grow more painful in the deepening night, Kotaki traces the lines of Akito’s laugh, the high ringing sound of it that makes his breath catch, still. It surprises him these days, especially after last Friday’s dinner when his mother talked about his coming of age ceremony in the coming year, just how much years it has been, and  _ still _ . How long it’s been that he’s kept his eyes on the line of Akito’s back as he danced, his hips, his shoulders that their hand-me-downs fell like deflated balloons around. Now his side profile, his body backstage as they change between songs, how much it has been filled out by the years. 

Perhaps Kotaki should feel like he has caught up, somehow. But it never feels like he had, or like he ever could. Most days, Akito’s smile finds him in a crowd and Kotaki still feels like it’s meant for someone else, as if he’s still hidden behind every other Kansai junior who had their eyes turned up towards B.A.D..

“Are you listening to me?” Akito demands, eyes watery with drink. He is a jolly drunk, making friends in the bars, taking baths with Hamada when he’s intoxicated. Morning afters are him making sad noises in the company van, and curling up in Kotaki’s lap if they get picked up together. Like this, it’s easy to imagine otherwise. Like this, Kotaki almost ready to give in, to lean in and lick the foam off his lips. Maybe tomorrow he’ll make as if it had all been a dream, and maybe Akito wouldn’t know better. 

“I  _ am _ , I  _ am! _ ” he insists, brushing off bits of edamame skins from his pants. Akito’s hand is a gentle weight on his knee, patting it fondly like he is wont to do even when he’s sober. But his touch is as warm as the night is cold, and Kotaki would not be lying if he said he wanted it everywhere else. 

“Never mind,” Akito decides with drunken aplomb, nudging the plate with the last karaage towards Kotaki. “We need to get you home soon.”

He stands up to pay, but Kotaki beats him to it. 

“Let me,” he says around a mouth full of fried chicken, taking the bill. He’s torn between heartbreak and love, the dim lights of the bar making everything too soft, too easy. Like this, he could let Akito go, he could kiss him once on the corner of his lips and decide it’s over, just one of the many fancies of his youth conspiring with the sheer impulsivity of a full stomach. 

But like this, it’s easier too, to let Akito wrap his hand around his wrist, to allow him to lead them up to the cashier, and play along when he murmurs quietly, proudly,  _ our Nozomu’s really all grown up. _


	16. [akito/kotaki] I'm too old (for being young)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> University AU with girl!Akito and young, uncertain Kotaki.
> 
> If this reads a little disjointed it's because I wrote them over a couple of days, meaning for them to be stand-alones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> reasons for this verse:  
> 1\. the idea of girl!akito awakened something in my little bi heart.   
> 2\. kotaki and akito's dynamics are so fascinating and fun to write i wondered what would happen if their senpai-kouhai relationship was played around with a little, if i added the factors of gender and university.

Aki has a dildo in the drawer of her bedside table. 

This is what she is thinking when the very attractive girl smiles at her from across the university bar, shifting in her seat so her short skirt rides even further up her thighs, and Aki’s mind offers this up as relevant information. It works like that sometimes, like a broken search engine that will conjure up everything related to dick jokes and nothing actually useful. (Read: in the presence of attractive people, and in new situations.)

But this is also the sort of talk that’s the direct opposite of her New Year resolution to be a better conversationalist, so Aki tucks it away in one of the many drawers of her brain and turns to Jun instead. Okay, so she’s supposed to be Jun’s wing-lady tonight, but it’s not like she’s having as much trouble as she was making out this morning. 

And  _ now. _ She’s making out with another girl beside Aki, so her job is pretty much done. Really,  _ especially _ now that Jun’s making noises like she’d rather be on a ratty couch somewhere, with this girl’s hands under her bra. Let’s be real, she’d probably rather just have Aki there for the morning after, when even a computer screen is too bright and she’s sprawled on their living room floor, regretting her entire life. 

“Hold on, hold on,” Aki says, trying to tug Jun away for a moment. She doesn’t really succeed though because the girl - cute,  _ huge smile _ , and too bouncy for Jun’s taste as Aki knows it, but perhaps she’s just tipsy enough for this to feel right - whines loudly and tries to pull her back in by the fabric of her sweater. 

“ _ Hold - on.  _ I’ll return her in a moment, just -” and finally, she manages to pry Jun away from wandering hands and ask, “You have your dams right?” Jun nods seriously, patting the front pocket of her jeans while her gaze sharpens. “She looks super young so you’ll have to remember okay, okay? My number is still on your speed dial so just call me whenever. ” She nods again, so Aki lets her go, running through all the reminders they’ve exchanged multiple times. She should be fine, unless this girl - Shigeoka or something, Aki had been distracted - turns out to a serial killer. One never knows; she even has the teeth for it. 

“Remember okay!” Aki repeats when Shigeoka tugs Jun off the barstool and makes to leave. Jun only has the presence of mind to give her a thumbs-up before Aki loses the sight of her overpriced mustard sweater between the bodies in the crowd.

For a moment, Aki’s at a loss. The night is still young, and the music is still being drowned out by students’ voices talking over each other to get heard. Yet, here she is, alone at the bar in her sluttiest clothes, running her fingers down the condensation of her beer glass and wondering about what time Jun will end up stumbling through the front door tomorrow morning. The last time, she even stayed for breakfast and ended up back only in time for a late lunch; she always found the sweetest ones. 

“Uhm, can I have one melon soda please? Thanks,” and when Aki turns towards the voice, her brain immediately reverts back to broken search engine mode. Sneaking glances with her peripheral vision, she watches him hop onto the barstool with legs so long they seem to go on forever. He surveys the crowd with interest, lingering on groups of people for a moment before he’s swinging himself around on the stool so fast it protest with squeaky noises.

Then she must have been staring openly, because suddenly, the boy looks caught out.

“Hi,” he blurts, nodding a greeting, and Aki’s brain settles a little at the prospect of someone attractive who’s even more nervous than her. In this case, she could potentially have the upper hand. 

“Hey,” she replies, trying to be smooth but it must not be working very well because the boy just offers her a quick lopsided grin then proceeds to stare intently down at his drink. “First time here?”

He looks up at the bartender, then at her, then at the bartender again, then with the tips of his ears turning pink, “ha, yeah. It’s that obvious?” 

Aki resists the urge to laugh. He’s so unsure it’s cute, and so cute Aki’s pulling open the drawer in her brain and letting out all those unspeakable things she wants to do. 

“Nah, it was a lucky guess,” she replies just to cut him a little slack. She remembers her first night at the university bar, when the amount of people just felt menacing and overwhelming. He sighs in relief, and sticks out his hand. It’s broad and dwarfs Aki’s entirely. 

“Kotaki Nozomu,” he says, bowing a little, and Aki would be lying if she said she wasn’t tracing the line of his neck with her eyes, and making up what she cannot see beyond his collar. 

“Kiriyama Aki, pleased to make your acquaintance.” Then “To new experiences?” she says, raising her glass and taking note of how Kotaki’s eyes flick down to her lips when her tongue darts out to lick away beer foam. 

Ten minutes later, Aki lets Kotaki slam her, back-first against a cubicle wall in the men’s toilet. It smells like pee and vomit, but Aki’s more occupied with the heat of Kotaki’s erection through his trousers, and the way his hips buck into hers when she reaches down. He breaks away for a moment -  _ far too long _ \- to ask if she’s okay, before she’s pulling his head back down to her clavicles, his hands to her breasts, and his mouth to the soft skin of her nape where she will find the imprints of his teeth in the morning. 

*

Aki doesn’t come until hours later, in her bed with Kotaki’s mouth between her legs and her hands in his hair. They lay on her damp bedsheets afterwards, half naked and panting, the thrill that had them stumbling frantically back from the dingy bar toilet having worn off with their orgasms. 

“Stay over?” Aki offers when she’s caught her breath and feeling oddly fond, reaches over to play with Kotaki’s hair, curling wet strands around her fingers over and over again. Kotaki tilts up to find her eyes, considers her for a moment before he agrees by rolling onto her with a grunt. 

It’s not like she doesn’t invite people to stay over when they hook up. It’s just that rarely anyone agrees. She understands; it’s awkward after all especially the morning after when you find each other in the stark sunlight and realise things have changed overnight, dry skin and eye bags looks different under bar lights after all. 

And by the light of Aki’s bedside lamp, Kotaki’s already different, less uncertain about touching her, less hesitant about telling her what he likes. Aki doesn’t know what she was looking for when she saw him at the bar, but now she decides she likes him even more like this, confident to the point of teasing even.

He finds her watching, and sticks his tongue out at her like an actual child. She returns it with as much impertinence as she can. Like this, his body seems to take up even more space than before, his long limbs winding around her like they’ve been rescued from the confines of his clothes. Or something.

Aki feels drunk on endorphins at this point, and the expanse of this body in her bed. Friday night, and she counts herself lucky.

Then Kotaki kisses her hip, makes a questioning sound then he’s rubbing faux-vigorously at a mole she has there until she swats at his head and the room fills with laughter.

*

It turns out Kotaki is weak with mornings. 

This, Aki supposes, is one of the things you learn when hook-ups decide to stay the night. She studies the morning light on his skin, grey day on grey sheets and his body the only colour in her narrow bed. She wants to kiss his ribs where they peep out from under the rumpled, wrinkled sheets, wants to hold her fingers to his shoulders and see how they fit, or don’t. 

He doesn’t wake till midday and by then Aki’s tiptoed past him multiple times, between the toilet and the living room and the kitchen, not sure whether she wants him to wake, not quite sure what will come after. 

In the toilet mirror, her makeup has been smudged by sleep, like a beach when the tide recedes. Aki wonders what time Kotaki will leave so she can change her sheets.

This is what happens: 

  1. Kotaki joins her in the kitchen when she’s making lunch. He stands in the doorway, half-dressed in yesterday’s clothes, waits for her to invite him in. 
  2. Aki lets him stay for lunch, even. They eat standing, bent over at the kitchen counter, silent until Aki gropes Kotaki over his boxers and asks him what he thinks about second servings.
  3. He has to bend to kiss her. Having closed his eyes before their lips met, he mouths at the corner of her lips clumsily until Aki wraps a hand around the back of his neck and shows him where she wants his tongue to be.



He finally leaves. In her genkan, he turns back, looking as if he’s got things to say. But Aki’s heard them all before and she doesn’t have time for anything else, so she tiptoes to kiss his cheek and says  _ I’ll call you.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from 'Nu 1' by PWR BTTM.


	17. [junta/akito/hamada] making advances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akito, Hama-chan and Junta spending an evening ignoring a movie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Inez for our Domestic Niiyans verse, but can totally be read on its own.

It’s hard to convince Junta that solitary evening plans equate productivity, but less hard if said evening plan consists entirely of making out. Well, it took some time but Akito and Hamada are nothing if not patient, especially since they’re both avid supporters and the sole two members of the Nothing But Making Out For Entire Evenings gang.

Tonight their soundtrack is some Jim Carrey movie that Hamada rented (Akito chose) and they’ve had worse, not that Hamada’s particularly occupied with that now. He’s got his hands under Junta’s shirt, fingers tracing his ribs so every inhale, exhale he takes, Hamada touches. At the foot of the couch, sitting on the floor, Akito makes an impatient noise that makes the dog perk up in her bed, and Junta breaks away, panting, flushed and grinning. It’s a good look on him.

Hamada watches Akito lean back to meet Junta’s lips, his gaze tearing away from the screen for a moment. He’s sure he must taste like the caramel popcorn he’s been eating all night, burnt sugar and rich buttery underlying the smell of his freshly shampooed hair. He likes watching them together, the two of his favourite people in the world, together and in love. Hamada could watch them all day but unfortunately, he only has patience for a few moments. He reaches for Akito next, tilting his upper body awkwardly off the couch to get his fingers in Akito’s damp hair. They meet just after a joke in the movie, something about a dog that makes Akito chuckle and Hamada kisses his laughter, tastes honey immediately after. He smells like their laundry detergent and coconuts, makes Hamada think of day-long lounges on Okinawan beaches, hot sun, the sea sweeping onto sand.

Under Hamada, Junta tangles their legs together.

“This was a good idea,” he admits, sinking back into the cushions so Hamada loses sight of him for a second.

Then Akito starts building the foundations of a popcorn castle on Junta’s bare tummy.


	18. [hamada] take the long route

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ooku AU with Hama-chan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was just a stray idea I had that I had meant to write more of, but maybe some other day!

When he is eight, Hamada leaves his mother.

The shogunate is still in its infancy and cruel. The man from the castle speaks like he owns the entire Japan, he promises her food during famines, and a samurai’s position for her son, and Hamada had stared at him wide-eyed and uncomprehending. All he knew was that the man’s pale green silk kimono had shone in the sun like a new grain of rice buried under its husk. And all he remembered afterwards was the way his mother’s face shook when the weight of the man’s hand on his shoulder had knocked the breath from his lungs.

In the castle, they give him a new name. _Takahiro_ , they say; to worship, to bring blessing to this land. How fit for a boy who is to become a gift. The Shogun will be most pleased.

To prepare, Hamada learns how to kneel for hours, how to forget the sensation in his legs, and hold his forehead to the tatami. He learns how to let the minutes run out of his ears, scatter in the wind so it becomes sunset before he realises. He learns how to pull on so many layers of fine cloth and how to wear them like he has the right to. They are soft, softer than anything he has ever touched, smooth under his callused fingertips. At night, he sings a song his mother used to hum. Under the bright fat moon, he curls up in his futon and watches the wind take leaves from the trees while he listens to the other boys dream of their mothers, too.

The journey from Mino to Edo takes more days than Hamada can count. They are not allowed to walk; the Shogun likes her gifts unbroken, unblemished and untainted by the earth. She wants to be the one whose hand unties obis, savouring the smooth pull of virgin silk on virgin silk as if they were lacquered boxes wrapped in _furoshiki_ s, molded to perfection and untouched by anyone but the master’s hands - _hers_. So Hamada turns upwards instead. Through his palanquin and the veil upon his face, he lifts his eyes to the sun and feels the remnants of his old life on his skin.

When they stop for the night, always a new inn in a new town, he stumbles, into the boy before him - Nakama, he remembers. Jun or something, offered from his father to their lord to bless his court. Hamada apologises every time, knees shaking. Every time Nakama just dusts him off with an expression more solemn than he has seen on any other boy, and gestures at the door.

By the time they get to Edo, it’s summer and Hamada welcomes the burning heat on his face. Perhaps he will turn dark like this, perhaps the sun will stain his skin and make him undesirable. Maybe then he will be sent back to Mino, he thinks, to his mother and their goat and his siblings, where he will be allowed to push his toes into wet dirt and run to the river to drink from it. But then, the attendants are making disapproving noises, chiding him for taking his veil off again. _Are you trying to shame your lord?_ They say, _the one who has clothed and fed you, and given you a new name?_ So Hamada lowers his head, and does not speak.


	19. [aiba/akito] seafaring folk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akito follows a cute stranger out to sea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something a bit cheesy and a bit silly. For lysanderpuck for her birthday last year.

It’s stupid, but not even the stupidest thing Akito’s ever done. Junta would be cracking himself up if he were here to see this; Akito lured onboard a stranger’s boat purely because of a pretty face, going what feels like a hundred kilometres an hour with the sight of land disappearing rapidly behind them.

But then again, if Junta were here, Akito would most decidedly not be here, white-knuckled grip around the handrails of a boat that belonged to someone who he’d met for all of 20 minutes. He would probably be on the way to dinner or something, less frazzled, possibly safer, and definitely warmer.

The bow slices through the waves, the surf rushing outwards from them. In the distance, the sun is setting in three dozen different shades of gold. For a moment, Akito shivers from the biting wind getting into his jacket; he had not dressed for the open waters. But Akito’s always been one to trust his gut though, and when the dude had grinned, Akito knew he would trust him with his life. (He would probably also fuck him in a heartbeat if he asked, but Akito was trying hard not to think about that right now.)

“We’re almost there!” The guy yells above the roar of the engine, and Akito turns around to wave. Aiba Masaki was what he said his name he was, coupled with a sheepish duck of his head and a _actually you could just call me Aiba-chan; all my friends do_ that had made Akito’s heart race a mile a minute. It’s still in his ears right now, showing no sign of letting up and Akito doesn’t even know if it’s the thrill of being in open water or Aiba’s casual familiarity that is leaving him so breathless. Probably a combination of the two, with the latter taking up an overwhelming portion if he’s going to be terribly honest with himself.

Just then, the boat slows into a halt and the engine is switched off. Aiba swings out of the cabin, wearing a windswept look that Akito _feels_.

“Here we are,” he glances at Akito and chuckles. “I told you it’s the best!” Aiba settles onto the deck with one leg tucked under him, and the other dangling over the sea. The water has barely still from the boat’s movement, and foam still spreads idly out around them. But the sea shimmers endlessly into the horizon, gradients of navy blue reaching down from the sky to reach a faint border of pastel pink that lines the water’s edge. Akito feels as if he could reach out and blend them together with the tip of his thumb, half-expecting to find the chalkiness of his soft pastels and charcoal pencils.

“Yeah, it’s beautiful.” He breathes, eyes tracking fading gold. Then the sunlight throwing Aiba’s face into sharp relief, he’s beautiful too, like this, and Akito can barely remember how much he doesn’t know about him. The realisation feels like a dream, still distant and fuzzy around the edges. And yet, here they are, ten klicks out from land, with nothing but the smell of bait on his fingers to defend himself should Aiba turn out to be a serial killer.

Akito’s heart is in his wrist, his throat, his ears, its frantic beat slowed into a steady thud.

“Sorry I didn’t ask if you were free before I made you come.” And Akito remembers with a start that he’d been rolling back his reel and making to keep his rod when Aiba had turned up.

“Ah! Don’t worry about it, I’m just going home for dinner after this.” He says, waving away Aiba’s apology. Why should he need to, when it feels as if they’re the only witnesses to this; the world holding its breath for the moment the sun finally dips beneath the horizon. “This is the most exciting thing that’s happened to me this week,” he adds with a laugh.

There is a silence before Aiba chirps up. “Say,” he says, turning back to meet Akito’s eyes. His voice is curious and teasing all at the same time. “Do you always follow people you meet for the first time out to sea?”

A blush stains Akito’s ears with warmth. He barks out a laugh that Aiba echoes. They both know where this is leading, might have known since at the shore, where the waves crashed against the seawall and Akito, seeing Aiba struggle with his bait, had asked if he needed help.

“Only the cute ones, and only those who pretend they don’t know how to tie knots,” Akito laughs, the sound drowned out by the ocean. He leans his arms against the railing, watches the sun vanish. A peace sweeps across the water’s surface. It seems to envelope them both.

“Ugh, you saw right through me.” Aiba giggles and it’s breathless and so filled with delight Akito can’t help being mesmerised by the lines of his smile.

“It’s a good thing you’re not very good at pretending otherwise,” Akito lowers himself onto the deck too. The wind has turned even colder now, and Aiba’s so very warm in his wool jumper and soft down jacket.

“I’m glad too,” and Aiba leans against him, so close that his exhale falls warm on Akito’s skin, so close he might as well have kissed him.

Later, when they get back to shore and Akito’s flexing out his wobbly sea legs, there is a moment in which he finds Aiba staring over armfuls of equipment that gave him away in the first place.

“Ramen and drinks?” Akito offers. When Aiba’s face spreads slowly into a smile, his heart kickstarts in triple-time.


	20. [akito] dystopia AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dystopia AU. Not sure which one of my steampunk or cyberpunk universes this is set in (and I have a strong feeling it's none of them) so just posting it as a scribble!

Compulsory conscription starts again in the spring of 2203. Akito is fifteen then.

The officer comes into his classroom in high school, interrupting Japanese History and his teacher mid-lecture about Tokugawa and his achievements. (It is only later that Akito realises the irony of it.) There are footsteps and the panicked creaking of tables all along the school hallways, wondering murmurs of the other students in their classrooms. Akito's half-tempted to poke his head out of the window to see what's happening. But all he catches are glimpses of army vans rolling into the courtyard, the sakura petals, pink scattered across the dirt. Then the officer in his dress blues clicks his heels and announces that all the boys in the class have to report to the municipal office the next day and Akito's lost for words.

*

  
On his first day, they run ten miles around the desecrated walls of a hospital. Their sergeant screams at them to go faster, and Akito's legs scream at him to hold on, wait for a while. But he's ahead of the pack, sweat soaking his shirt and streaming down his brow, and he doesn't know if it's fear or pride making him go even faster.

*

  
It's two weeks before he finds Hamada and Hamanaka while on patrol. Or he catches them on a cigarette break in the back, where they won't be found, their hands in each other's back pockets, Hamada's lips on the slope of Bunichi's neck.

Akito, fifteen and filled with false bravado, asks "what are you doing?" like it isn't clear enough, especially when they jump apart, tenderness turned to panic in an instant. His hand clenches and unclenches around the cattle prod they handed him. Everything still feels too much. The too-many names of their superiors, their endless drills, and now this.

Bunichi - the pale one, his moles like constellations on his face - stammers out some excuse about the rain keeping them here under the awning of what used to be a pavilion. There are still gold trimmings around the carved stone. Fake, Akito knows but it still makes him wonder about the people who built this hospital, who used it - were born or got better or slipped away.

If he were someone else, someone more scared or less impulsive, perhaps he would have reported them. Perhaps he would have written their names down in warning, intimidated by the prospect of his own punishment. But all he does is nod.

"Be careful," he says instead, exhaling slowly. When he turns on his heels, his head is filled with images from the week before, a pair of new recruits caught fondling in their bunks past curfew, and the raw stripes of their backs for days after.


	21. [akito/kotaki]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aki is a terrible tease.

Aki has one cheek resting on the inside of Nozomi’s winter-pale thighs. When she moves, nuzzles against warm skin, her teeth scrape against tender skin and makes Nozomi groan helplessly, hips lifting.

“Now, now,” Aki says, purposely placating, only responding to Nozomi’s glare by sliding her palms under Nozomi’s ass and pulling her across the rumpled sheets to get her closer to her searching lips. Nozomi’s hair is splayed across Aki’s pillow, chestnut brown framing her cheekbones against the navy and white striped sheets. It has just been fifteen minutes, but their clothes are already abandoned piles on the wood floor and a pink flush paints Nozomi’s skin from waist up. Aki’s even taken time to splay her palms around her breasts, tracked colour across her skin until Nozomi whined and pulled Aki’s hand to the heat between her legs.

So this is what she is doing now; sliding her thumb through Nozomi’s folds and up over her clitoris and kissing her belly as it shivers.

And she does it again, then pressing her thumb to her lips, watches as Nozomi watches her, her blown pupils and jaw slack from arousal.

“You always taste so good,” Aki tells her, just before she hooks Nozomi’s left knee over the hook of her elbow and reaches over to suck a nipple into her mouth. The same moment, she slides two fingers all the way in, confident that Nozomi’s been wet for a while now.

The arch of Nozomi’s body and the broken moan that slips from her lips is answer enough. Even more so when she curls her fingers tightly into Aki’s short hair, clutching tightly enough that pain flares behind her eyes.

“Fucking - _finally_ ,” and Nozomi uses her grip against Aki’s skull to shove her nearer to her chest so Aki’s mouth drops open and her tongue finds the hardness of Nozomi's nipple and the softness of her flesh. Meanwhile, she curls her fingers against Nozomi, knowing that she’s found her g-spot right away because Nozomi grinds into her hand, struggling to get closer, to get _more_.


	22. [shige & kamiyama] golden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In one of the colder months, Shige finds a camera in the dumps of the old city, an ancient, broken thing that clicked pathetically before it died in Kamiyama’s arms.
> 
> Happens in the same verse as [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6661780/chapters/15473998).

In one of the colder months, Shige finds a camera in the dumps of the old city, an ancient, broken thing that clicked pathetically before it died in Kamiyama’s arms.

“What’s this for?” He asks, deliberately sidestepping from the reason Shige was in the dumps in the first place. He’s told him off enough for that to last several lifetimes. They’re both adults now; Shige can take care of himself, even if it means Kamiyama has to spend the rest of his life making sure he’s close by. But then again, he’s gotten used to it. Even daytime in the marketplace, Shige’s always wandering off, flirting, buying snacks, looking at jewels again, some other shiny artisan craft like a blackbird drawn to pretty things.

Sometimes Kamiyama looks at Shige’s smile and feels like the same.

“It’s a camera!” Shige crows, delight plain on his face and Kamiyama shifts his gaze down at the mess of gears and smashed bulbs, clicking the shutter once, twice to no response.

“Yeah I can see that, but why are you giving it to me?” Kamiyama runs his hand along the smooth groove along its side. He could take this apart in 2 seconds; their scope upstairs could use with a few more pieces. But together, light, switch, trigger, this doesn’t make sense at all.

Dramatic as always, Shige harrumphs and takes the camera from him. “I just _thought_ ,” he trails off, clearly frustrated. Restless now, he fiddles with it, turning it over and over in his hands, sliding his fingers into its crooks and crannies as if he were waiting for it to give up his secrets. It’s futile anyway; they’re both far too young to know a time with these things. Kamiyama’s only heard about them from gossip, and seen the scraps of manuals that he finds in the pockets of his targets. Perhaps one of their parents owned one of these, when they were still allowed, but they’re all gone now.

Then, “I saw a picture a few months ago,” Shige admits, his voice quiet in the tall blackened steel columns of their home. In the flickering light, his hunched shoulders make him look smaller than he is, and his voice sounds like a whisper. But Kamiyama leans closer, waiting. At times, Shige gets into moods like these, when he’s struck by a nostalgia for a past they were never a part of. Kamiyama’s never understood it.

“I just -” Shige tries again, staring at the array of polished arrowheads at Kamiyama’s barefeet. “It was a family - father, mother, a little girl holding a toddler’s hand - and they looked happy, like _really_ happy. Like you know, when you find actual copper wires, and you’re talking about it for an entire week.”

Kamiyama kicks Shige’s shin, embarrassed, then allows Shige to shove him away, his eyes flicking up to his for a second before they’re back on the fire.

“Just like that.” Shige studies the light for a moment, pensive and anxious almost, and Kamiyama knows when he needs to be left alone, so he picks up another arrowhead and wraps the grease-blackened cloth around his hand again. They know each other well enough that he gets what Shige was trying to say. The blanks are easy enough to fill in when Shige’s face reads like an open book, his furrowed brows, the curl of his lips. These words, his inextinguishable hope, their cliches.

“Ah, forget it. Never mind!” Shige scoots closer, when Kamiyama is almost done with the polishing. He’s suddenly back to his usual self again, touching Kamiyama’s shoulders, putting his arms around him and squeezing until he swats him away.

It’s moments like these that Kamiyama looks at Shige and expects him to still be twelve, thirteen, fourteen, young enough for Kamiyama to protect with his katana raised and ready.

Shige meets his eyes with a questioning gaze.

“Leave it,” he says finally. “I’ll ask Kiriyama to look at it, he might know people who know.” At Shige’s wide grin, he adds, “it’ll still need film to work, you know.”

And Shige leaps to his feet, straightening with a salute. 


	23. [hamada/shige] paper rounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hama-chan as a fisherman and Shige as the newspaper boy in a small town. NC-17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cheryl made me do it.

Hamada’s hands are around Shige’s hips when Shige lowers himself onto his cock, stopping midway to groan breathlessly at the stretch. He folds forward, still halfway there, one hand spread out on Hamada’s chest, the other clasped around the side of his neck.

“Is this okay?” Hamada says, and Shige can’t find the words to say hold on, I need a moment. It’s veering on the edge of too much; the muscles of Hamada’s neck shifting under Shige’s fingers, the faint dusting of hair down his belly like a path pointing down, down to where their bodies are connected. Then there’s his cock, thicker than Shige’s ever taken, its musk still heavy on his tongue. It’s unbearable.

Shige nods shakily, letting his head hang while he tries to catch his breath. Hamada runs his clammy hands along the back of Shige’s thighs, soothing, just touching. Shige remembers seeing him at the dock this morning, looking cold and rumpled in his rubber boots. He’d been untangling his nets when Shige cycled by, so sleepy it took him a moment to look up when Shige called out his name and waved.

Now his gaze is sharper, but still gentle, _always_ gentle with Shige.

“Okay,” Shige says after the moment passes, after the pain of the stretch has faded into the background. Balancing his hands on Hamada’s chest, he sinks further, holding his breath until his chest is near to bursting and Hamada’s hips bump against Shige’s ass.

When Shige looks up, Hamada’s grinning so hard that his mouth is about to fly off his face. His skin is pink and warm under Shige’s hands.

“You feel so good,” he says, taking Shige’s hands and placing them on his shoulders, and Shige feels his strength, tempered by the high seas. “You always feel so good.”


	24. [junta/akito/hamada] in the dark of night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ooku AU. NC-17. When Hamada is twenty-one, Nakama brings him to Yoshiwara. (Same verse as [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6661780/chapters/21615437).)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not gonna lie, I'm really proud of this.

When Hamada is twenty-one, Nakama brings him to Yoshiwara.

It is a place of myth almost, especially for Hamada, who grew up hearing snatches of conversation in the marketplace comparing Ooku to the people _there_. The speakers are always careful, hiding their words under the wide bream of a straw hat or behind the thin partition of an inn’s restaurant. Hamada would listen, morbid curiosity driving him on. After all, the drab material of Hamada’s clothes were designed to never give him away.

Hamada has never been; there are rules that prohibit it. After all, he is the property of the shogun and nobody else’s touch may taint him, even though hers has not either. But he knows the other men go, those who have grown bold, or bored, or resigned to their fates. ‘Flower vases’, Nakama calls them; pretty on the outside and hollow on the inside, always just waiting around to be filled. Whenever he says this, with self-deprecation so thick in his voice, Hamada always finds himself hurrying to change the subject.

After they leave their weapons at the gate, Hamada follows Nakama’s footsteps, openly surveying the narrow streets. The houses and shops are packed tightly together in Yoshiwara. It is after dark and lit lanterns hang, swinging in the slight breeze. From windows, he sees flashes of blush, painted lips and a soft, pale hand gesturing at him from a sky blue kimono sleeve. Someone calls out to him, asking if the good-looking sir would like to be shown a good time, and Hamada finds himself bowing in a fluster and hurrying along.

Nakama takes him deeper and deeper into the maze of establishments, and the farther in they venture, the more Hamada hears them; low voices calling out pleasure, then higher and higher and higher until they grunt and groan. Heat pools in Hamada’s gut.

Finally, they stop in front of an unassuming shopfront, and Hamada waits for Nakama to knock, hesitant almost.

When the door opens, it is to an older woman greets Nakama like an old friend.

“I see you have brought along a friend,” she nods at Hamada with a smile that shows off all her crooked teeth. “Come, he has been waiting for you.”

She brings them into a dimly lit room, down a corridor. Through the thin paper doors of the other rooms, Hamada glimpses the shadows of people kneeling, and bodies tangled together in rough love-making. Already, his cock hangs heavy between his legs, and his face is hot with a blush. He is wondering briefly how Nakama is faring, when they come to a door at the end of the corridor. The woman kneels, calling out their names before she draws the door open.

Inside, there is a young man, his face half-caked in kabuki paint and holding a stained cloth in his hand. Hamada tracks the length of his undone obi across the tatami, running his eyes up his body, to the way that his silk kimono is slipping off his broad shoulders, and the expanse of pale skin underneath.

A smile leaps to the man’s face immediately as he nods, dismissing the older woman.

“Nakama-sama,” he says, clearly delighted. When he turns on his knees, his kimono falls off one shoulder, and Hamada has to avert his eyes from his smooth, smooth chest and the contrast of his hard nipples, dark against his skin. “I was wondering when you would visit me again.”

Nakama coughs, slightly embarrassed. “Akito-san,” he says, “I apologise, I have been busy.”

“At least you are here now.” Then Akito turns his eyes to Hamada, and immediately, Hamada’s throat goes dry. “You must be Hamada-sama,” he says, eyeing him curiously. The paint on his face makes him seem more menacing. “I am glad Nakama-sama’s finally brought you here. You are everything he has said you are.” And Hamada is just about to ask what he means by that when a servant brings in a tray with a pot and tea cups.

Akito pours them both tea, bending on his knees to do it. With one hand, he clutches the kimono in front of his chest in some semblance of modesty, but Hamada can’t help looking anyway, at the curve of his back, the muscles in his neck shifting under his skin when he moves, then the hair falling across his face. Already he’s thinking about Akito’s body under his, bare skin against bare skin, what it would be like to suck on that unblemished skin until it turns dark red with blood rushing to the surface.

Then Akito looks up, awareness bright in his eyes, and in that split second, Hamada realises that he is not the spider in a web, but a fly trapped in its strings.

//

That night, Hamada and Nakama watch as Akito removes the rest of the paint from his face. Nakama and Akito talk about something Hamada doesn’t listen to, while the tea in his cup goes cold.

 _Would you want to,_ Nakama had asked on the outskirts of Yoshiwara just now, dipping his head to imply more. _With him, with me._ Then Hamada had been unsure.

Now, he is the one pulling Akito to Nakama, watching while they kiss, leisurely at first, then more urgently, hands reaching for knots and slipping under fabric. When Akito presses up against Hamada, he feels his hardness against his thigh, and then the softness of his lips starting from the sensitive spot behind his ear trailing down to the hollow of his collarbone. He is teasing, barely there touches of more warm breath than skin, the promising wet heat of his tongue darting out to lick until Hamada wants for something more.

“I saw you. I saw you when you walked in, how you looked at me, like you were already thinking of me like this,” Akito murmurs, looking at Hamada through his lashes, dark eyes making Hamada shiver. He is breathless already, what with Akito’s hands making quick work of all the layers of his clothes. Once they are off, he is running his palms down Hamada’s chest, his stomach and his cock to claim the sharp angles of his hips, not trying in any way to hide his leer.

Then Hamada pushes the rest of Akito’s kimono off to find, as it pools around his hips that he is completely bare underneath. Nakama curses quietly, and Hamada feels his cock jump at the sight of well-defined arms and soft thighs that stand out against the wiry hair between his legs.

Nakama kneels behind Akito, still dressed even though his outer kimono is in disarray. He bends to the slope of Akito’s neck as Akito groans and tilts his head to give him space. Hamada studies their bodies; the flush on Akito’s chest, his erection, thick and straining towards his belly, then Nakama’s when he finally pulls off his outer kimono.

Then Akito wets his fingers with oil and stretches around to slip two into himself, his face giving in to naked pleasure, and suddenly Hamada’s mind goes somewhere else entirely.

//

The next morning, Hamada wakes up to a grey dawn in an unfamiliar room.

By then, Akito and Nakama are already up, having a conversation over hot tea in undertones. They are both undressed, Nakama with only the first layer of his underclothes and Akito with the silk kimono that he had been wearing the night before.

The sun casts the room in dim light, and even though the musty smell of sex still hangs heavy, it feels different now that the brothel is not filled with the sounds of lovemaking.

Nakama and Akito shift over to make a space for Hamada as he puts on some underclothes, yawning deeply.

When he shuffles into the space in between them, they regard him with affectionate gazes, Nakama’s chin propped up on his palm. Here, he looks more comfortable, more relaxed than Hamada can remember. Perhaps it is because he can be a different person here, one that does not need to be on his guard for backstabbing and gossip among the other men that could send him out of the court and onto the streets. Perhaps this is his escape.

In the daylight, Akito is still beautiful, but the angles of his body move with more pragmatism than sensuality. Still, Hamada finds himself distracted by the fresh love-bite at the base of his neck where Hamada had placed his mouth the night before.

Then Akito gets to his knees and bows, “I do not think we have been properly introduced. I am Kiriyama Akito, pleased to make your acquaintance.” And Hamada feels Nakama’s hand slipping onto his. 


	25. [junta/shige] public displays of affection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Office AU. Shige’s angry when they get back from the party.
> 
> Happens in the same verse as [1](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6661780/chapters/15473602), [2](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6661780/chapters/15473857) and [3](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6661780/chapters/15473833).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I LOVE THESE IDIOTS

Shige’s angry when they get back from the party.

He storms around the kitchen, washing Junta’s dirty dishes and cleaning up his apartment even in his anger.

“What was that,” he demands without turning from the sink. Junta sets his jaw from where he’s standing in the doorway, arms crossed and resistant. This wasn’t a fight they had to be having; Junta hadn’t been wrong.

“That what?” He retorts, but it only makes Shige whirl around in a flurry, his wet hands sending soap suds flying everywhere. His chest is heaving, and if anything, Junta is sorry for making him this furious. He’d been seething silently seething the entire way back, because that was the way Shige was, keeping his anger to himself until they got to somewhere private where he could let it out without it troubling anyone else.

Shige grits his teeth, staring at the ground, then at Junta. “That. At the party. Are you ashamed to be seen with me? Of us?”

And Junta _gets it._

It had been the annual office party and Shige had stuck close, eager and openly affectionate since the news of their relationship had gotten out a few weeks ago anyway. On retrospect, he hadn’t done anything overboard but then again, he knew Junta was uncomfortable with public displays of affection. Yet there he was putting an arm around Junta’s shoulders while he was talking to superiors, then slipping a hand on his elbow while they stood around talking to Ryusei and Akito.

Both times he had shrugged out of Shige’s grip easily, but stayed close, their bodies brushing. He hadn’t moved away until the third time, when Shige had his hand in the small of Junta’s back and he stepped away to speak to another group nearby, leaving Shige with Kotaki.

He’d thought it was fine, that Shige would understand that Junta wasn’t comfortable with it, that he didn’t share the ability to be so easy with physical affection in general, much less amongst their colleagues.

Well, he had been wrong.

“So what is it,” Shige asks, gripping the corner of the kitchen counter so hard his hand slips and the soaking sponge falls onto the ground with a wet squelch. “Look, I understand that - “

“I’m sorry,” Junta says in a sigh. It makes Shige looks up in surprise, blinking owlishly as Junta watches his anger drain from the tight lines of his face. It might just be the first time Junta’s ever apologised straight away, but this - this was his fault.

“This was my fault, I didn’t think - _I didn’t think_.” Junta settles on, lifting up empty palms awkwardly. Shige deflates against the counter, looking contrite. “I thought you understood that I’m just bad at physical affection in public, and I thought that I was getting better at it but I guess I’m not, okay?”

He hangs his head, dropping his arms to his side. It’s hard when he’s so bad at this whole relationship thing, the apologies, the communication, and this too.

“I’m sorry too,” Shige’s pair of very soapy hands come into view and takes Junta’s. He lets out a huff of laugh when Junta makes a face at that. “Aaah, I guess Junta’s just terrible at the things I’m good at, huh.” He chances a look at Junta out of the corner of his eyes, and Junta resists the urge to hit him on his head. “But that’s alright, I’m bad at the things you’re good at so we kind of fit, I guess?”

His words make all sorts of fuzzy feelings rise up in Junta’s chest, but immediately after Shige’s striding away in a very exaggeratedly grand manner, taking backwards glances to make sure Junta is looking at his butt.

“You’re such an idiot,” Junta tells it. And “thank you for doing the dishes,” then choking out a laugh when Shige comes right back over to plant a loud smacking kiss on his cheek. 


	26. [akito/shige]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just two dumbs being very domestic and very gay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Their dynamic is so hard to get right ;A;

With Shige, it’s easy.

They’re on the couch, and it’s early evening. Shige lies on the couch, his legs in Akito’s lap and one arm hanging off the edge of the cushions while he half watches TV and half thinks about nothing at all.

In the kitchen, curry is simmering slowly, nearly done. Earlier, they had returned from work together, and Akito had hunted around the kitchen for snacks, while Shige cut up carrots and distracted him with demands for kisses. In no order at all except the rough guide that Shige’s mother’s recipe originally prescribed, they’d put together the ingredients, chopped and cut and browned, into the pot. Akito had watched Shige hum quietly as he piled the sink high with dirty dishes, while his tongue was tinged with the savoury salt of prawn crackers.

But that the day has finally wound down into something slower and less hurried, Akito is in no rush to get anywhere else. His final destination is here, on their ratty couch that he got from his parents as a hand-me-down when he moved out. Its covers are peeling in some places and there’s a spot in the seat that makes a funny sagging sound every time someone flops on it. But even with all the new furniture they keep bringing home, funded by their regular paychecks now, this couch still feels like an old friend, a familiar blanket on a cold night.

“Hey, hey.” Shige starts, and when Akito looks up from his page, he’s not looking at him. He’s still watching the TV screen but his hand is flapping out at Akito as he is wont to do. “Remember when?”

Akito makes a question of a sound, shifting backwards into the couch. Shige unconsciously follows, heels digging deeper into Akito’s lap until he has to tug at his ankles to get him to move.

“When I first kissed you here,” Shige glances at him for a moment, a smile warming his cheeks. Absently, he pats the cushion space between them, what little there is of it.

Akito huffs loudly, but he’s picking up his book, putting it down in the next moment to climb over the couch. Shige lets him prop up his elbows beside his head, staring up at him with such glee that Akito knows this was his plan all along. Shige always looks so beautiful, in the spotlight, carrying the gazes of everyone in the room, but there’s him here too. His hair is in a mess from the shower, his body relaxed under Akito’s, his hand coming up to craddle Akito’s hips like an afterthought.

“I’m not letting you have any of the curry later; it’s _all_ mine.” Akito threatens, trying to be threatening but Shige darts up for a brief peck on his lips and Akito doesn’t even have the time to duck.

“You don’t have the heart to do that, let’s be real here.” Shige points out, so gleeful Akito gives up to kiss a trail from behind Shige’s ear down, down his neck to his Adam’s apple, until he too runs out of words to say. 


	27. [akito & junta] fuzzy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> University AU. Aki is not a booty call. Happens in this [verse](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6661780/chapters/15474172).

Aki never wants to be the sort of person to treat anyone like a booty call. But that doesn’t mean that she is not amenable to be the one that Kotaki drunk-dials two Fridays later, sounding like he’s had too much to drink and then five more shots. There is nothing but the faint sound of jazz music behind him, and his voice dips into wistfulness when he asks, when he says _I can’t stop thinking about you_. Even when Aki scoffs, she can hear him on the other end, the clearing of his throat scratchy and raw, as if he’s genuinely been thinking, like he’s been laid in bed most nights, counting the hours and thinking of her.

Aki’s been there. She knows how longing can tear a person up from the inside, and leave your chest like a cavity carved open by some carnivore or another.

So now she lays half in bed, half off, her right hand left hanging in an aborted attempt to reach for her car keys or vibrator. She had been going for the latter when he called, and now she’s not quite sure.

Outside Jun’s cleaning the kitchen in one of her late night frustration busts. She seems to be having problems with the girl from the club too, but she hasn’t said anything so Aki has been waiting for the right moment to ask.

“Should I go,” Aki asks leaning against the doorframe to the kitchen. Jun is on her knees on the tiles, scrubbing at their oven like she’s about to compensate for all the childhoods she’s destroyed by swearing during her part-time job inside a Hello Kitty costume.

She swipes testily at the sweat on her forehead and frowns up at Aki, furrowed brow and pursed lips.

“If you want to go because you feel guilty and it makes you think of that person, don’t. If you actually want to fuck him, then go.” Then she’s disappearing into the darkness of the oven again, sweeping soap suds everywhere.

Aki sighs loudly, put-uponly, blowing a raspberry in the air.

Then she goes to fill up the kettle to make tea for the both of them. They’re going to need it, especially Jun when she finishes with a sparkling oven and a ruined floor. 


	28. [akito & kotaki] rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kotaki and Akito falling asleep at the back of the company van.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was feeling poorly and a friend was like 'think of Akito and Kotaki falling asleep at the back of the van!!" And I instantly felt better.

Kotaki always falls asleep once he gets into the backseat of the van. Akito shouldn’t be surprised by it anymore, how he stumbles into the van, his breath still deep from the night’s sleep. Two seconds and he’s out like a light again, his body slumped against the opposite side of the van, his head lolling against the window.

And it’s not like Akito doesn’t feel the same. Exhaustion makes notches in his bones, settles heavy into his body until his feet feel like lead and his head is still clouded over with last week’s conversations. It’s just that it always takes some time for his body to catch up, to know he can rest now that the time for quick jabs, and laughing for the camera is some time else.

He shifts towards the window now. Outside, the sun has barely lit the rooftops, and Akito watches the young day grow in steady measures, the blossoming umbrellas over the morning crowd and a young child making their way to school on their own.

And perhaps Kotaki’s the one who’s gotten used to Akito instead, because even in sleep, he draws nearer, curling into Akito’s shorter build with a sleepy sound. It might have been a question, it sounded like it could have been one in another life. Perhaps the one in which they live without dark eyebags, or perhaps the one in which Akito has to remind Kotaki to rest. But in this one, it’s Akito who gives up consciousness with evenly timed breaths, who allows Kotaki to rest his heavy head over his heart, who falls asleep with his eyelashes tickling Kotaki’s skin, like butterfly kisses in flight.

 


	29. [junta/shige] checkmate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> High school/College AU. When Shige talks about wishing his life to be a shoujo manga, this is not what he imagined.

When Shige talks about wishing his life to be a shoujo manga, this is not what he imagined.

Five minutes away from the school gates, he is always the one who closes the gap between their hands, linking their fingers together in a loose grip.

“This is dumb,” Junta says, every single time, even though he’s the one who takes the bus half an hour each way from his university to Shige’s high school to see him every other day.

Today, Shige’s had a long day so his patience has been worn a little thin by his dumbass teammates who never knew when to _let a joke go_ and his maths teacher who seems to be bent on making his evenings a living hell. It’s a bit petty, but Shige never said he’s mature so he shrugs his fingers from Junta’s and takes a laaaarge step away from him.

“I didn’t mean -” Junta starts, already lagging behind now that Shige’s decided he’s not slowing down, and maybe he’s just a bit pissed off about how Junta never makes the first move. At some point, this whole shoujo manga protagonist thing gets a little trite.

“You never mean,” Shige grumbles under his breath, sticking his hands in his pockets in a huff.

They don’t talk at the bus stop.

Shige feels Junta’s frustration in the way he hops from one foot to another, and how his fingers worry at his bag strap. By then, regret is already eating a hole in his heart. Junta’s in the midst of his exams and still, he turns up, on the dot, outside the school gates, offering to carry Shige’s glove, his complaints about his day, his arm around Junta’s shoulders - or anything at all.

They don’t talk on the bus.

Shige takes the seat next to the window, and Junta the one next to him.

Seventeen minutes in, past the house with the red roof and an apartment block with a painting of a cat, Junta’s head lolls onto Shige’s shoulder, heavy with the dark shadows around his eyes. Funny how Shige’d never noticed them just now, when the afternoon sun was glaring down on them outside the school gates.

They don’t talk all the way home.

Shige stays staring out of the smudged windows even as the bus takes him past his stop, past his street then two wards away, where the streets are unfamiliar and the signs take on the shade of the sunset.

Junta wakes up just as Shige’s about to put his hand on his knee.

“Oh,” he says, and Shige watches a traffic light change in the reflection of Junta’s glasses. “Oh, we’re almost at mine.”

Shige allows a sheepish laugh. “Yeah,” he says, for the lack of something more. He reaches for the button to stop the bus as Junta takes his glove from him again.

“Want to stay over?” Junta asks, hopeful.

And this time, he’s the one closing the gap at the back of the empty bus and bumping their shoulders together, his fingers reaching for Shige’s.


	30. [akito/junta] early awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akito loves Junta when he’s like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just love writing the familiarity of these dumbs.

Akito loves Junta when he’s like this, sharp tongue made soft by the morning hush, this silence over the world turning him pliant and willing to give in to whatever Akito wants.

And Akito makes many requests, with his fingers tracing Junta’s hipbone where his shirt has ridden up under the twist of a blanket, a hand in the hair over his eyes, mussed by sleep and Akito’s wandering lips.

When Junta gathers enough of the day in his body, when the sunlight through their thin curtains wake him enough, he returns those touches with replies of his own, a hand grasping Akito’s to meet a crumpled pillowcase, fingers retracing its steps under the waistband of Akito’s pyjamas, and then dry lips to find the tune of a familiar song. 


	31. [akito/hamada] sweet nectar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akito and Hamada in Okinawa. 
> 
> Rewatched Konamon Quest and wrote this.

in okinawa, they drink too many cans of mixed nectar.

the sky seems to hold more colour here.

akito brushes hamada’s knuckles with his own when the cameras aren’t watching. they share a private smile just before the AD writes out a new instruction on his board, and the cameraman swings the lens towards them again.

after work, they eat taco rice in a tiny restaurant down an alley that hamada swears he’s been down before. he hasn’t. but akito just crinkles his nose and guffaws at his expense, then makes up for it in the hotel later when he abandons his own single bed for the warmth of hamada’s. they make out under the covers, bumping the sharp angles of elbows into the soft bellies, knocking knobby knees into tender thighs.

i think the bed is too small for us, hamada wonders and presses his giggles into akito’s neck so he feels the heat of his exhales, like steam from a hot cup of tea.

yeah i think so too, akito replies, fingers finding a slip of skin over hamada’s boxers where his shirt has risen up. feigning innocence, he spreads his fingers there, resting them on the gentle incline of hamada’s waist.

we could end up anywhere, hamada says. he pulls akito closer still, his elbow on akito’s hip and his hand on akito’s back.

yeah, but we’re aiming for nagasaki right? then, where do you want to go?

hamada hums thoughtfully.

they fall asleep before he comes up with an answer, two young men in a small single bed, tangled up in the rhythms of each other’s breathing until sunrise.


	32. [junta/shige] these blinding barlights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junta and Shige's relationship over the years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NGL, I kind of love this one a lot.

even years later, when west is 7 years old, then 10 then 15 and junta will still believe that he fell into their relationship.

and it’s shige who made the first move. junta would never have; their contracts have clauses against fraternization after all.

after 15 hour pv shoots, shige was the one who lingered awkwardly in his corner of their green room, waiting for everyone to leave, distracting junta with some joke about how uptight he looked in his solo shots in one breath then asking junta what he wanted to eat in the next. it was so smooth, but shige had had practice where junta was concerned while junta had learnt by the to read the flickering expressions across shige’s face too. all the split second moments, the twitch of his lips, clouds passing across his eyes.

they had dinner in an old izakaya just off from the bright lights of downtown osaka.

the first time, shige seemed to know everyone there, greeting someone every other moment. he must have caught something in junta’s expression, because he ducked his head sheepishly and junta found himself going _don’t worry about it_ even though it was rude that shige had been the one who had invited him out and yet he was the one who wasn’t _listening_.

then, junta hadn’t yet put a name to the tightening of his chest yet, but he still appreciated it when shige asked the owner if they could move to an empty table deeper into the shop, one that was hidden under the shadows of shelves and towering boxes of corn flour. there, nobody disturbed them and junta remembers thinking then that that was not the sort of first date that he would ever bring a girl on. it was too shabby, too dim, and far too noisy for quiet conversation. at the same time, shige’s knee had bumped his under the table, and when he just laughed it off, junta found that he didn’t mind that it at all.

it keeps happening. summer turns into autumn, then winter, then spring. one year, two, three counted in trips to restaurants, bars that have no signboard. junta starts off choosing the fancier ones for a few months, then even he starts to relish the heat of shige’s body pressed close to his in the colder months, the animated faces shige makes when he explains the importance of sleeping and waking early, made up close by the close quarters. those dim bar lights throw the angles of shige’s cheekbones into sharp relief, and soon junta finds himself being the rude one, the one who has to put up his hand mid-conversation to ask _sorry can you say that again?_ because he was too distracted tracing the lines of shige’s easy grin.

it takes them both too long to say anything.

but it happens years later, when junta is thirty-two and shige is twenty-seven and they are getting too old for excuses.

on long rides in the van to location shoots, junta thinks too much about settling down. when he dozes off, he dreams of children’s laughter in the yard of a big house. when he wakes, shige is right there, sleeping with his mouth wide open and his head lolling against the headrest in time to the bumps in the road. their legs are intertwined.

akito looks at him like he knows all his secrets, and junta thinks he probably does.

“tell him. he’s not going to wait around forever,” he suggests gently, studying junta’s face for a single moment before he turns back to his book and junta stares at his side profile. he thinks about hamada and akito and kotaki, three sides to a unconventional coin and the years they had taken to work.

in the end, it’s junta who makes the first move at the end of so many firsts that they’ve both lost count.

when shige says, “did you hear what non-chan was saying?” under the same dim lights as the first time around, junta reaches across the table to tug at shige’s curled index finger with his own.

there is no one trying to say hi this time. there hasn’t been anyone for ages.

“can i walk you home tonight?” he asks, even though their apartments are in separate directions, but shige’s always liked romantic gestures.

shige tilts his head. it takes him a second to figure it out, but when he does, his joy spreads across his face like clouds making way for the sun. junta feels as if he could close his eyes now and feel the warmth of spring on his face, even though it’s past midnight and it’s october.

“yeah, okay,” shige says, grinning a silly grin. he bumps their knees together, and lets out a happy, slightly embarrassed sound. his eyes meet junta’s then dart away. “yeah, i’d like that.”

(afterwards, shige is the one who wraps his hand around junta’s wrist and pulls him close in the darkness of his _genkan_. neither of them have found the light switch, but it’s so late and so quiet that junta doesn’t think about anything else when his lips presses into shige’s and he tastes the oden broth that they shared.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, here are most of the WEST things I wrote in 2016. Sorry for the time it took for me to update! I wrote a bunch of other drabbles in a few more universes that I still want to keep working on, so I thought I shouldn't post them just yet. Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed this messy compilation of words! I really enjoyed writing every single one of them. 
> 
> PS: Lemme know if this format worked for you? Especially with drabbles from the same verse - were they easy for you to follow? Who is even reading this lol


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